For years, if you wanted to “make it” in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the map was pretty obvious.
First, Brazil.
Then New York.
Then Austin.
Then wherever Gordon Ryan happened to be lifting weights, posting shirtless, and making half the internet angry before breakfast.
But now Craig Jones has done what Craig Jones usually does: looked at the normal path, laughed at it, and walked in the opposite direction wearing flip-flops and a questionable grin.
This time, the direction is Mexico.
B-Team is moving into Zamaya, a resort-style training facility in Tulum, tucked into the Mayan jungle like someone asked, “What if we built a grappling gym, but also made it look like a place where influencers pretend they discovered spirituality?”
On paper, it sounds insane.
A world-class no-gi team leaving the familiar comfort of Austin for a Mexican jungle resort? That sounds like the kind of idea you pitch after three margaritas and one too many heel hook instructional sales.
But the more you think about it, the less crazy it gets.
Actually, it might be the most BJJ thing ever.
Craig Jones Didn’t Just Open A Gym
This isn’t just another academy opening.
If Craig Jones rented a warehouse, threw down some mats, painted a skull on the wall, and called it a day, nobody would be losing their minds. That’s normal. Every city has at least one gym that looks like it was built inside an abandoned mechanic shop and somehow produces killers.
This feels different.
Zamaya is being presented as a full training destination. Not just a place to drop in for rounds. A place where people can travel, stay, train, recover, eat, live, and basically cosplay as full-time professional grapplers for a week before returning home to their office jobs and suspicious lower back pain.
That’s the part that matters.
Craig isn’t just betting on Mexico as a location. He’s betting on the idea that BJJ tourism is about to become much bigger.
And honestly?
He might be right.
Mexico Makes More Sense Than People Think
At first, Mexico feels like a strange move only because the BJJ world has trained itself to think in predictable hubs. Austin became the no-gi capital for a while because the athletes were there, the content was there, and every second grappler suddenly wanted to live in Texas and wrestle people who looked like they were built in a lab.
But Mexico has advantages that are hard to ignore.
It’s close to the United States. It’s accessible from Canada, South America, and Europe. The weather is good. The cost of living can be lower than major American cities. The food is elite. The lifestyle sells itself. And if you can train twice a day, recover properly, eat tacos, and stare at palm trees between rounds, most people will at least consider it.
Compare that to spending winter in some grey city where your gym bag smells like wet regret and the sun clocks out at 4:30.
Mexico starts looking pretty good.
Is Mexico Becoming The Thailand Of Grappling?
This is the real question.
Thailand has been the fight tourism capital for Muay Thai for decades. People fly there from all over the world to train, fight, recover, party, disappear for three months, come back with shin bruises, and tell everyone at home that they “found themselves.”
Usually they found cheap pad work and mango sticky rice.
Still counts.
BJJ has never really had one clear version of that. Brazil had the history, of course. But modern no-gi culture is different. It’s more international, more online, more mobile, and more connected to lifestyle than ever before.
A lot of grapplers today don’t just want a gym.
They want an experience.
They want the camp. The destination. The content. The rounds. The recovery. The feeling that for one week, they’re not just training after work like a tired normal person. They’re living like an athlete.
Even if their guard retention still says “regional accountant.”
Mexico could become that place.
Not overnight. Not automatically. But the ingredients are there.
Craig Jones Understands Culture Better Than Most
This is where Craig Jones is different.
Plenty of elite grapplers are great athletes. Some are great coaches. Some are great marketers. Craig is one of the few who understands culture.
B-Team was never just a gym. It was a vibe. Elite grappling without the fake seriousness. High-level no-gi mixed with bad jokes, self-awareness, and enough internet chaos to make traditional martial arts people uncomfortable.
That’s why people paid attention.
Craig has always understood that modern grappling is not just about medals. It’s about personality, content, community, and making people feel like they’re part of something.
That matters now.
Because younger grapplers don’t just follow teams for technique. They follow them because of identity.
They want to know who is funny. Who is real. Who trains hard but doesn’t act like every warmup is a sacred ceremony passed down from a samurai ghost.
Craig built a brand around that.
Now he’s taking that brand to Mexico.
That’s not random.
That’s strategy wearing board shorts.
Destination Gyms Are The Future
The old gym model was simple.
You lived somewhere. You trained nearby. Maybe once a year you travelled for a seminar or a competition. That was it.
Now people travel specifically to train.
They visit Austin. San Diego. New York. Puerto Rico. Brazil. Thailand. Dubai. Wherever the athletes, camps, or famous coaches are.
BJJ has become part sport, part lifestyle, part cult, part expensive laundry problem.
Destination gyms are the next logical step.
People already spend money on training camps. They already travel for seminars. They already plan vacations around open mats because apparently normal sightseeing isn’t enough anymore.
“Should we visit the museum?”
“No, I found a 7AM no-gi class with a former ADCC trials medalist.”
Beautiful sickness.
A place like Zamaya fits perfectly into that trend. It gives grapplers a reason to travel, train hard, recover properly, meet people, make content, and pretend they’re not checking their work emails between rounds.
The Lifestyle Trap Is Real Though
Of course, there’s a possible downside.
Anytime you mix serious training with resort life, there’s a risk that the whole thing becomes more Instagram than mat room.
BJJ people are not immune to this.
Actually, we might be worse.
Give a grappler a palm tree, a sunset, and a rash guard that fits well, and suddenly they’re posting captions about “the journey” like they didn’t just get smashed by a visiting purple belt from Ohio.
The challenge for Mexico will be keeping the training serious.
Because a destination gym only works long-term if the rounds are good. The facility can be beautiful. The weather can be perfect. The recovery area can look like something out of a billionaire wellness cult. But if the room doesn’t produce hard training, people will eventually stop caring.
BJJ culture respects vibes.
But it worships skill.
Craig knows that. B-Team knows that. That’s why this move is interesting. If the training room is legit, Mexico becomes a serious destination. If it becomes a luxury vacation with occasional drilling, then it’s just CrossFit Bali with heel hooks.
Nobody wants that.
Probably.
What This Means For Regular Grapplers
Most people reading this are not quitting their jobs and moving to Tulum next week.
Which is rude to your boss, but understandable.
For regular grapplers, the bigger takeaway is that the sport is changing. BJJ is no longer just something you do after work in a small room above a mechanic shop. It’s becoming global, mobile, and increasingly tied to travel, lifestyle, and community.
That doesn’t mean every gym needs to become a resort.
Please don’t put a smoothie bar where the squat rack should be.
But it does mean the idea of what a BJJ academy can be is expanding.
Some gyms will stay local and gritty. Good. We need those.
Some gyms will become elite competition factories. Also good.
Some will become destination academies where people travel from around the world to train for a week or a month.
Also good.
The sport is big enough for all of it.
Could Mexico Become A Serious BJJ Hub?
Yes.
But only if the athletes show up.
That’s the real test.
A location becomes important in BJJ when talent gathers there. Not when the building is pretty. Not when the branding is cool. Not when the smoothie menu has words nobody can pronounce.
Talent creates hubs.
If elite athletes start spending time in Mexico, if serious camps happen there, if visitors get good rounds, if seminars and events follow, then Mexico becomes more than a cool headline.
It becomes part of the map.
And that’s where Craig Jones has influence.
When Craig moves, people pay attention. When B-Team builds something, grapplers watch. When the project looks this different from the standard gym model, people talk.
That’s how hubs begin.
Not always with a master plan.
Sometimes with one strange idea that turns out to be early.
Final Thoughts
Craig Jones betting big on Mexico sounds ridiculous until you remember that most major shifts in grappling sounded ridiculous at first.
No-gi becoming this popular sounded ridiculous.
Professional grappling getting real money sounded ridiculous.
People flying across the world to train submission wrestling in resort facilities sounded ridiculous.
Then the sport changed.
Again.
Mexico might not become the new capital of BJJ overnight. Austin won’t disappear. Brazil won’t lose its history. Thailand won’t stop being the fight tourism king. But Mexico now has a serious case for becoming one of the most interesting grappling destinations in the world.
Good weather. Strong access. Lower friction. Travel appeal. A growing combat sports culture. And now Craig Jones planting a massive B-Team flag in the jungle like the world’s least serious conquistador.
Should the rest of BJJ follow?
Maybe not everyone.
But everyone should pay attention.
Because if this works, the future of grappling might look less like a traditional academy and more like a global training circuit. Camps, destination gyms, athlete hubs, and weird little pockets of killers forming wherever the mats, lifestyle, and community line up.
And honestly, that sounds pretty great.
Train hard in the morning. Recover in the afternoon. Eat tacos at night. Wake up and do it again.
There are worse ways to ruin your knees.
And if you’re going to chase the modern no-gi lifestyle, whether in Mexico, Austin, your local gym, or some humid basement where the wall pads are older than half the white belts, at least dress like you belong on the mats.
A good rash guard won’t make you Craig Jones.
Fight shorts won’t give you B-Team leg locks.
But looking sharp while making questionable grappling decisions?
That’s still progress.
Train hard. Wash your rash guard.